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Cunneries fishery teams of three

A change of venue for me today which was more than needed after spending the last three months at Partridge lakes doing the various winter leagues and i was attending the teams of three match at the Cunneries fishery in Eccleston , it was also my first proper contest with the Daiwa Adlington squad and even at this early stage of my team fishing experience i expected to put up a good showing even though we had our team captain missing due to other commitments , apart from the charity match for the Golborne miners i had not fished here for 18 months so it might be difficult competing against the venue regulars but we was all really looking forward to it plus i had done a good deal of homework on the fishery which i hoped would point me in the right direction .

The weather during the week had been really nice almost spring like but as per usual come the weekend we had a drop in temperature , little in the way of a breeze and constant drizzle which wasnt ideal for catching a nice net full of f1s , I was the first of our team to arrive but i knew a few of the lads fishing today so i had a chat while i waited and after a bit the rest of the squad turned up , we had a little team talk before it was time for the captains to do the draw and after joining the queue around half way because there was a bit of a scrum at the door to the cabin i didn’t have to wait long for a dip in the bag of doom we ended up with ;

Old canal peg 4

S canal legs 3+4 peg 43

S canal legs 1+2 peg 13

The latter of them was my home for the day just your typical wind ward end peg nothing new there i suppose and i hoped that i could do it justice after my short walk to my peg i had plenty of options.

Positives

Reed lined far bank

Corner of the island where there was a bit of a mud bank

Reed bed to my left although it was only a top kit away

Reed lined right hand margin which had a couple of cut outs so i could get in some shallower water .

Negatives

Only nine meters wide

Bit of a hill behind which will make shipping back a bit awkward

Left hand reed bed a bit closer than i would like

Bait for the day

A bit different from what i’m used too because it was getting warm enough for a worm approach to work and it something that i need to get my head around , especially getting the mix right and today i used an equal four parts of ;

chopped worm

micro

ringers green

water

I also had the usual f1 baits ;

micros

4+2mm expanders

2 pint maggots

My rigs for the day was;

Pellet rig in front of the far bank reeds were it was a touch over three-foot deep and i used a 4×12 roob float with an inch spread bulk starting above the four-inch 010 garbo hook length which had a size 18 guru pellet hook attached .

Maggot rig at the side of left hand reed bed where it was nearly three-foot and i used a 4×10 maggot float which had four number eleven stotz spread down the 014 garbo main line , my hook length was six-inch of 010 garbo which had a size 18 guru maggot hook attached.

Worm rig for fishing various parts of my peg in 2ft but i was going to start in the corner of my right hand margin and i used a matrix series one float which was a bodied pattern with a thick bristle plus a glass stem , my main line was the usual 014 garbo and i stepped up the hook length to 012 garbo with a size 16 guru lwg hook .

I was ready well before the all in for a change and i didn’t want to start walking round with my peg being so narrow as i felt that it would disturb the fish so i just had to sit it out ,when the hooter finally sounded i began my match by fishing across with pellets in front of the reed bed and i needed to tap in a couple of feeds of micros before i had any sort of indication , strangely i was missing quite a few bites on this line so i decided to change to a 2mm expander and this sorted things out but it was only 4oz stockies that had settled on this swim which isn’t really what i wanted to be catching , when i trashed my rig as a fish came off on the way in i took the opportunity to drop onto my left hand maggot rig at the side of the reed bed where i had thrown in a dozen mags every five minutes since the match started and i hoped that a few f1s had settled there , i did manage to pick up a couple but it didn’t seem right because there was a lot of small silvers present and in the back of my mind i just knew that i was using the wrong bait .

A switch to my worm mix on my right hand margin had me catching f1s almost straight away and i finally managed a run of fish but after a while the bites tailed off maybe i had over fed the swim or just not given them enough time to settle ? I plumbed up another line to my right at six meters were there was a little cut out in between the reeds and after i plumbed up to find it was only a few inch deeper which was good as i could use the same rig , yet again i had fish almost instantly after i fed and i went on another good run but just like before things began to tail off , so before i took the last fish out of the swim i rested it and went back on my original worm swim for the next hour i rotated between the two putting the odd fish in the net including an f1 over three pounds .

But it was only when i went on to my left hand margin swim on my top kit that i really started bagging and went on a good run for over an hour , yet again the bites began to tail off and it must be down to not having enough feed content to keep the f1s interested ? Which is something that i need to work on before the next round i also need to be a bit more patient before rotating swims as most anglers stayed on just one line all day and for the rest of the match i rotated my worm swims picking up the odd f1 from each but i couldn’t really get them to settle today .

When the all out sounded it called time on a rather frustrating match which was only to be expected after my lack of venue knowledge and a new bait to use today , i had managed to put 45 f1s in my net so i still managed to catch a few and i figured that i had around sixty pounds , as i was the first to weigh in i didn’t have long to wait to find out and my two nets went 70lb which is more than i thought this was good enough for 5th although i was only 8lb from finishing third on my two legs of the snake canal which was my target at the start of the match , strangely the middle of all the legs on the S canal had fished really well but this might be down to the quality of angler on those pegs .

The other lads had endured a similar match to me as they both finished fifth on their lakes and we ended up with 15 points which was also good enough for 5th on the day so not too bad a start to the teams of three, hopefully when things settle down a bit with a steady team and we get to know the venue a bit better we should hopefully be able to push on from here , i am looking forward to the next round already especially after the weights which have come out from there in the matches during the week and hopefully i will get my first ton of the year before too long .